The contending animated films Shrek and Atlantis: The Lost Empire fell out of the top 10 for the first time, but Shrek, in 11th place,brought another $3.9 million into DreamWorks' coffers, to bring its total after nine weeks to $247.3 million, making it the second-biggest animated hit of all time, behind Disney's The Lion King.

Universal's The Fast and the Furious got off to a start that lived up to its name as it earned $40.1 million at the box office over the weekend, beating out 20th Century Fox's Dr. Dolittle 2, starring Eddie Murphy, which placed second with $25 million.

That big green ogre Shrek might find himself far from alone next year should he have to trudge down the media-besieged red carpet of Hollywood's' Kodak Theatre.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Board of Governors has approved final rules that include the opening of a new category for a best animated feature film award.
The approval comes nine months after the initial announcement of the category, which had been debated for years by the AMPAS.

Synopsis

It's the year 1914 and nerdish linguist Milo Thatcher has just received a treasured copy of "The Shepherd's Journal", a guide to finding the lost city of Atlantis from the wealthy Preston B. Whitmore, a friend of Milo's late explorer grandfather, Once Milo cracks the highly undecipherable language of the Atlantean people, Whitmore hires Commander Rourke and the beautiful Helga to lead a submarine expedition to find the legendary submerged civilization. However finding the city is only half the battle. Once they arrive in Atlantis, they must contend with an ancient king out to protect the land's mysterious crystal power source as well as his beautiful daughter, Princess Kida, from the unknown intentions of their new visitors.